It took a relatively small California company called Telestream to bridge the video creation incompatibilities of two PC giants. Apple's Macintosh computers maintain a stronghold in video editing, thanks to their art department-friendliness, a long legacy of use in Avid and competitors' video equipment and Apple's own professional software, Final Cut Pro. While Apple has carved out a video production niche, Microsoft has been trying to control video distribution through its Windows Media Video 9, which is currently popular for Web video, but also has the potential to be used for portable entertainment, DVDs, and even cable-TV distribution. Microsoft recently donated WMV9's codec, called VC-1, to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), hoping to also make it a TV industry standard.
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